Cabinet 40: Hair

As Roland Barthes observed of Abbe Pierre's "zero" haircut, even the most neutral of hairstyles offers a forest of signs. The capacity of hair to attract and radiate meaning permeates not just the history of hairstyles--from the Pharaonic beard of the Egyptians to the ironic mullet of the hipster--but also the rituals, technologies and products that define the world of hair. A sourcebook of ideas for artists and others interested in the curiosities of culture at large, Cabinet 40, with its special section devoted to "Hair," features Jeffrey Kastner on the visual language of the barber pole, Laurel Braitman on the laboratory behavior of "barber mice," Mats Bigert on the ritual of shaving the left leg of a prisoner before electrocution and Janet Connelly on the disappearing pubic hair of the porn star, as well as artist projects by Julia Jacquette and Susan Hiller.